Inter-County Championship 2012–13

Open

Under 180

On now to the quarter-finals where we faced Cambridgeshire on a day where Notts had to field 32 players in the Under 180/Under 160 competition. The EACU team were in a much better position;
they had brought forward their U160 by a week losing to Warwickshire by 8½-7½. I was not pleased therefore to see that their Under 180 team was a virtual rehash of the previous week’s
U160 with some nine players appearing in both matches. That said, we had strengthened our side substantially and outgraded Cambridgeshire on the bottom ten boards. In what I understand was a
closely contested and friendly match we lost the upper boards and were unable to make headway in the lower order and were always trailing. Even had board count been invoked we would have
failed to progress. I note that Cambridgeshire fielded a much stronger side in the semi-final and progressed to the final at the expense of SCCU2, Middlesex.

Could I take this opportunity to thank everyone who represented the county U180 team this year; particularly those who provided transport.

The vagaries of the Counties Championships pairings were evident when we found ourselves with a preliminary match against Essex, the SCCU third nominee with the match played at Milton Keynes
on 27th April. John Swain, Matt Basey and Brian Thompson were extra 160+ players who were available. Essex were rather weaker than I anticipated and a close match ensued with every decisive
result for one side soon matched with a win elsewhere. As the match neared the end, the teams were all square at 7½-7½ and with Matt Basey still at the board with the advantage. Knowing
that a draw was sufficient, Matt very sensibly simplified into an ending where his opponent had insufficient mating material and the draw gave us a win on board count. This was subsequently
amended to an 8½-6½ win for Notts; Essex having failed to follow the rules on eligibility carefully enough. As a postscript to this, Yorkshire defaulted their quarter-final match
against Kent thus making this match unnecessary. It’s clear that the £50 default penalty has had no effect with five matches defaulted to date. Something else needs to be done.

Nottinghamshire U180 - Essex U180 27 April 2013 Milton Keynes

Board

Grade

Grade

1

Burke, Steven

169

½–½

Gregory, Philip

179

2

Swain, John

165

1-0

Rix, Steven *

166

3

Hunter, Steve

164

1-0

McCall, Martin

165

4

Naan, Vincent

175

1-0

Millward, David

170

5

Walker, Andrew

166

½–½

Hampton, Christopher

160

6

Kenyon, Mark

163

0-1

White, John

169

7

Basey, Matt

UG

½–½

Twitchell, Neville

165

8

Thompson, Brian

163

1-0

Pinto, Reagan

165

9

Lane, Tim

162

½–½

Shaw, Matthew

166

10

Hayward, Brian

162

1-0

Murrell, Mark

143

11

Poole, Tim

159

0-1

Staniland, Philip

151

12

Sudar, Dragoljub

151

1-0

Kalinsky, Syd

159

13

Tassi, John

154

0-1

Philpott, John

158

14

London, Nick

154

½–½

Brock, David

155

15

Huthwaite, John

144

0-1

Kingsley, Malcolm

156

16

Radford, Mark

148

0-1

Nickals, Peter

151

8½–6½

* A 1 point penalty was imposed on Essex for fielding a player that was
ungraded and not cleared in advance. The win was awarded to the Nottinghamshire
player.

The County Under 180 team had just one match to play at the MCCU Zonal stage – against Warwickshire. Despite this, the MCCU Controller managed to get the venue wrong as Notts were due to
be the home side – so we eventually travelled to Birmingham. Notts were able to field eight players graded 160+ which was exactly matched by Warwickshire although their upper boards outgraded
ours. Unfortunately, although the teams were matched on paper, our lower boards took a battering from the West Midlands side where we were outpointed by 6½-1½. The higher boards acquitted
themselves well with just a defeat on Board One; however Warwickshire were always in front and ran out as 10-6 winners. The means that Notts went through to the national stages as MCCU2 rather
than the first nominees.

Notts made the early running in this game. At about the half-way stage we had wins from John Tassi, Bob Taylor and Hamzah Ali, against Tim Poole's quick loss. Looking around, Drag Sudar and
captain Neil Graham both appeared to have raging attacks. In an apparently strong team position, and having lost my opening edge, I was happy to accept my opponent's draw offer. Dick Myers
opted for the early draw route. As I watched the rest of the games, it dawned on me that this might be a close match. Pritesh was under heavy pressure. Marcel was a piece down. Neil's strong
attack had no obvious breakthrough. His opponent's pieces were becoming developed and he suddenly had some counter play. Steve's board also became a worry. He had played into a tricky ending
and seemed to see the dangers a few moves too late. The draws came in from Rob, Keith, James, Stan and Nick. Drag converted his impressive win. We were left with 3 games in progress - Neil,
Steve and Marcel's. Neil's game swung decisively against him. With steve failing to hold his ending, the game seemed up for us. Marcel was still playing, although I had given this up some
time ago. I saw his position had improved and he was now just the exchange down. He was offering stiff resistance, and with the possibilities of pins and knight forks, his opponent had to play
carefully and was getting behind on the clock. We now realised that if Marcel could hold the draw, we would win by board count. Marcel's last move maintained some tension in the position. With 5
minutes left on the clock his opponent offered the draw, which a stunned Marcel accepted. Marcel had seen that if his opponent simply moved his king forward, his position would fall apart.

In the end, an unlikely victory! The platform for the win was set by the wins of the Three Musketeers from Gambit and Bob. It was sealed by Marcel's amazing escapology. Should we call him
Merlin or Houdini? We'll have to play better against Essex in the semis. Their Jack-the-Lads do know the time of the day!